FTP extremely slow!!

[cmuench]

I have vsftp server for my ftp and My mac for a file transfer on a 100mb network never gets over 2MB\sec. Is there any way to speed this up? A little ridiculous as they are practically next to each other. They go through maybe 15 feet of cable thats it.

[rsimhamb]

Could you please post the output of the following commands:

ifconfig
mii-tool

[cmuench]

ifconfig

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:08:A1:14:B4:10  
          inet addr:192.168.1.102  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:7557304 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:12011518 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:1156951835 (1.0 GiB)  TX bytes:1803428797 (1.6 GiB)
          Interrupt:17 Base address:0xec00 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:26305 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:26305 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:47283432 (45.0 MiB)  TX bytes:47283432 (45.0 MiB)

vmnet1    Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:50:56:C0:00:01  
          inet addr:192.168.177.1  Bcast:192.168.177.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2055 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

vmnet8    Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:50:56:C0:00:08  
          inet addr:192.168.228.1  Bcast:192.168.228.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2055 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

mii-tool

SIOCGMIIPHY on 'eth0' failed: Operation not supported
no MII interfaces found

[rsimhamb]

I see that your NIC is not mii capable. You can use ethtool to force your Gigabit nic to operate in 100 MB Full duplex mode instead of gigabit and try again. Also, are you connecting the boxes via a switch?

ethtool command:

ethtool -s eth0 speed 100 duplex full autoneg off

[cmuench]

Its not a gigabit NIC. Also I'm connecting via 2 switches.

[williamwbishop]

Is the performance the same on a different platform from your server, say a windoze or another linux box?

[cmuench]

It deosn't matter which platform. Kubuntu, MAC OS X, windows. They all never go above 2or 3 MB per second over ftp.
EDIT: Well I just rebotooted and now I'm getting between 6-8 Mgs per second. but still why this slow?

[williamwbishop]

Originally Posted by cmuench

It deosn't matter which platform. Kubuntu, MAC OS X, windows. They all never go above 2or 3 MB per second over ftp.
EDIT: Well I just rebotooted and now I'm getting between 6-8 Mgs per second. but still why this slow?

What kind of switch are you connected to, managed or unmanaged or god forbid...a hub? Is there other traffic on the network, are you running a sniffer or anything else on the network? I noticed that the host is running vmware, is your server a virtual machine? If so, have you installed vmtools? That alone would make a 20 percent difference if it running on a guest. I run an image server running vsftpd in a vmguest and I get roughly 11 MB/s

8 is not so bad...well, not so good either.

You have many things to look for, so you need to narrow it down.

[cmuench]

I don't run the linux server(vsftpd) in vmware I just run vmware on the linux server. also the mac is on a mac so no problem there. also I have a 6 foot Cat5e cable to a Linsys 5 port 100 swtich then that goes to a 5 foot cat %e cable to a 16port dell unmanaged switch. then that goes to a 5 foot Cat5E cable to m linux server. When I am in the .2096 kernel and vmware running I didnt get above 1MB. that is just ridiculous. but when I reboot into newer kernel and no vmware I get about 8MB.

[William Haller]

Log in to the ftp server locally. Do a large file transfer locally (say an iso image). See what response you get without anything else in the way. It would be best to transfer from one hard drive to another to help reduce disk performance issues. Use ncftp or another transfer package that monitors transfer times. You won't be likely to get higher network transfers than localhost transfers. On my box, I got 7.47 MB/s with ncftp and 7.63 MB/s with lftp with a single drive transferring an ISO image.

[cmuench]

well a localhost transfer on the same disk was about 16-20MB.

[William Haller]

That isn't bad for an ISO transfer. It lets you know about the maximum you can get without any networking overhead, network congestion, effects of remote clients, or disk space issues on the client.

You'll have to get more information from the network guru's about general ways to adjust the ethernet parameters for larger block sizes and the like to try to up your network throughput. It would probably be useful to post the network stats for the receiving machine as well. It doesn't appear to be a vsftpd configuration issue.

[williamwbishop]

You are plugged directly into the linksys, and it goes to the Dell switch, and then your mac is on the dell switch?

Try working off of one switch, preferably the Dell. You may have a problem where you are having buffers overflow on one of the two switches(I vote the linksys, as these little switches are often in fact), or a duplex issue somewhere in the chain.

Considering what the local system is doing, I would say that you need to start troubleshooting your network. At least you have eliminated fedora, and that's part of the puzzle.